If you’ve been wondering why you are not able to access stored procedure return values from TableAdapter, here’s the solution for you. I will use tbTasks table and spInsertTask stored procedure to demonstrate the solution. You can see definitions for both below. CREATE TABLE dbo . tbTasks (...

Steve posted some answers to many of the questions about SQL Server Everywhere... http://blogs.msdn.com/stevelasker/

You’re building a Smart Client application. You want this Smart Client to be smart enough to provide validation feedback to the user as they enter information. However, in order to make the application scale to thousands of users you can’t open connections directly to the database from the client because...

Rob Walters, from the SQL Team, and I worked on an article for working with SQL Express in Windows Forms applications. There are a couple of quirks when it comes to Click Once that have been included in this MSDN article. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnsse/html...

In order to get to the code that is auto-generated by Visual Studio, follow these steps: 1. In the menu, select View -> Solution Explorer 2. In Solution Explorer, click the “Show all Files” icon at the top 3. Expand the file (e.g. Dataset1.xsd) that you want the generated code for 4. Double click...

On certain machines, after installing Visual Studio 2005, the contents of the Data Sources window disappears when a design surface that allows drag and drop from the Data Sources window is active. For example, the Windows Forms designer, User Control Designer, etc… The cause of this issue is how...

Overview In Visual Studio 2005 we added a number of features to help developers build and deploy applications that need a local data store. Here's a quick peek at how it works. In order to work with a local database file, you can simply add the file to your project (e.g. using the Project/Add Existing...

Article written for CoDe magazine describing how to customize the controls listed in the Data Sources Window for Drag Once Databinding http://www.code-magazine.com/Article.aspx?quickid=0411071 Steve

Article written for CoDe magazine relating to the Drag Once Databinding features in Smart Client Applicaitons www.Code-Magazine.com/Article.aspx?quickid=0409051 Steve

Tuning your SQL queries for the best performance can be part of life when you’re writing a database application. Sometimes life is hard, and you just can’t get things running as quickly as you’d like. With the default command time-out at 30 seconds, how do you use a TableAdapter to execute methods without...

In Whidbey DataSet designer, you are able to set Typed DataColumn's NullValue property to the following values if the DataType is string 1 (Empty) 2 (Nothing) (null for C#) 3 (Throw exception) 4 any string you can type in. The first three options are noticeable in the designer's property...

In 2005 we now have a new DataSet Designer. While we had planned to implement Zoom functionality it turned out to be more difficult then we had hoped. Long term we plan to leverage the new design framework that’s used by the Class designer. However, this infrastructure wasn’t completed earlier enough...

I’m happy to report that we were able to get TimeStamp comparison added. The issue we faced was by the time the DBCommandBuilder API stabilized we were in what we call UI freeze which means we couldn’t change UI elements without some major negotiating. We didn’t think we could get this done, but after...

Visual Studio 2005 now leverages the strongly typed settings file which wraps app.config. With connection strings stored in app.config/Settings, developers can centralize their connection strings across their application. Some advantages over VS2003 are: Strongly typed settings file. Rather then...

DataBinding does not work well with DataTable name with a "." The Dot in a DataTable name or a DataColumn name will not make the DataBinding happy. For example, if you drag drop a table from the DataSource window to a Windows Form, it would not create the right grid (the grid without columns)....

Developers often ask about better concurrency options on DataAdapters and of course our new TableAdapters. This was a difficult call. Just so you know we do care, , the ConflictOptions enum/flags that appear on SqlCommandBuilder was actually by request of our design time team. Early on this enum/flags...

DataSet Designer, Xml Schema Designer and Xml Editor (Note, DataSet Designer is also called DataSet Editor, Xml Schema Designer is also called Xml Schema Editor) In VS2002 or 2003, we shipped a XmlSchema designer, which serves as both schema designer and typed dataset designer. In VS2005, you...

Thanks Steve to create a new home for us. By the way, I am Zhiyong (aka John Chen), I am the developer for the DataSet designer in Whidbey. I like to blog something but I'm afread that I will ruin Steve's pretty home. So I created my own real junky-log in MSN Space, just jogging down something...